


Not Dark Yet

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cuddling and Snuggling, Episode Tag, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-17
Updated: 2010-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-14 13:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in a corner of SPN 5x21, Dean has trouble sleeping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Dark Yet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Smilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/gifts).



> a/n: Title from Bob Dylan. Written for 's birthday. Thank you to nyoka for the smart beta.

Dean can't sleep. He got in from Chicago two hours ago, and hasn't been able to shake off his edginess, the itch of the rising storm still on his skin, the rumble of the Impala's engine and stretch of dark highway still caught in his mind.

He sits up in his sleeping bag, elbows resting on his knees, and listens to the soft thump of Bobby's steps growing louder, then diminishing, over and over, as he walks up and down the stairs.

In the bed in the library, the one Bobby was using until he got the use of his legs back, Sam's out cold with the faint wash of moonlight over him. Dean's throat goes tight watching him sleep -- Sam, who's too old and too young at once, with the too old somehow sneaking up and now Dean can't get away from seeing it. He wonders how long it's been there without him realizing with this much clarity.

He gets up and walks through the house that's quiet except for Bobby's footsteps. Dean wore jeans and a thin white t-shirt to bed, and goosebumps rise along his bare arms in the chilly air.

Somehow he winds up on the screened-in porch at the back of the house, where he and Sam used to sleep during hot summers. The cots are gone now, leaving only a broken couch. Dean opens the door with its chipped paint and smudged glass panes, and steps down onto the porch, the boards rough against his bare feet. He stands staring through the screens at the fuzzy outlines of the trees in Bobby's yard, the metal hulks of the old cars. The screen and the moonlight transform them, until Dean sees the cars the way he did when he was ten -- part of an alien landscape, creatures that might come to life if he turned his back on them. It's been a long while since he's seen Bobby's junkyard this way. The goosebumps on his arms increase, cold prickling down the back of his neck. Maybe it's the idea of those rings, carefully folded into a rag in Dean's duffel bag. It's crazy, but it's like they're pulling at him.

"You look cold," Castiel says, right behind him.

Dean startles. "Holy shit, Cas," he whispers. How Castiel managed to sneak up on Dean like that with his mojo drained away, Dean has no idea. He hadn't even heard a floorboard creak.

The angel's standing just inside the porch door, tie loosened, trenchcoat and suit otherwise in place. In the pale light, he looks tired, worn out, circles under his eyes, hair more bedraggled than usual. Dean tries not to think about the flood of relief he felt when Castiel finally called them, what the days were like when they had no idea where in the entire friggin' universe he'd gone, or if he even _was_ any more.

"I thought you were dead," Dean says, and it doesn't come out the way it did when Cas called from the hospital. Castiel's gaze is steady, and he holds his ground as Dean steps closer to him, curves one hand around the back of Castiel's neck.

Castiel's skin is warm beneath Dean's fingers. Not with the strange extra thrum of heat he sometimes felt being close to Cas before he lost his mojo, but with regular, normal human warmth, amazingly human, even with Jimmy's soul no longer trapped inside there with him. "I thought you were dead," Dean says again, softer, as his other hand goes up, his thumb brushing gently over the stitches on Castiel's forehead.

"I'm hard to kill," Castiel says, with a brittle grin.

Then his fingers go up to Dean's face, lightly tracing his jaw and it's like Castiel's trying to make sure he's there, that Dean's shape is the same as it's always been. It's a little scary thinking that Castiel might've felt anything like the same hollow panic Dean felt when Cas disappeared. There's nowhere for Dean to put that thought. He pushes it down where he keeps the memory of alleyway stink and the crash of his body against brick.

Dean leans in and kisses Castiel, slow and hard and deep, pushing him against the old door. Castiel's fingers slide from Dean's jaw, dig into his hair and _shit_ , this was no different than kissing Cas when he was powered up. Now, as before, kissing Castiel turns him inside out and makes him feel like he left the rulebook behind by accident in a diner booth three states ago.

The kiss stops, and Castiel is breathing a little hard, his breath brushing against Dean's face while Dean leans his palms against the door on either side of him. Cas smells like sweat and a little like Bobby's van and a trace of deodorant. There've been times when Dean's wondered if Cas wasn't quite real, and his habit of walking into Dean's dreams doesn't help, but he seems real enough now. Solid and real and not banished to some celestial netherplane or what the fuck ever.

Suddenly the weight of all the losses, Jo and Ellen, Pamela, older regrets like Victor, the always-there hole in his gut whenever he thinks about his father, makes it almost too much to stay on his feet any more. All that -- and most of all, the suffocating twist of fear that hits him whenever he thinks about Sam and what's to come -- starts to swallow him down.

Exhausted, Dean lets himself sag, his body leaning against Castiel's, while Cas, human and a whole lot less strong than Dean now with only his thin, wiry muscles and no powers, grabs him, holds him up.

Castiel's hands are on him, one gripping his arm, one at the base of his back, pushing and guiding. He moves Dean across the shadowy porch, over to the couch. Somehow Dean ends up lying on his side on the soft, lumpy surface, facing outwards with Castiel behind him.

The two of them stretch out. Castiel doesn't even bother taking off his shoes. Dean winds up with Castiel's arms curled around his chest from behind, his back tucked up against Castiel's chest. They haven't even had _sex_ first, and Dean's letting himself be...friggin' _cuddled_ , spooned, whatever, by an angel -- by _Castiel_.

This was definitely not in the rulebook.

He's too tired to mind. Actually, it feels okay. Cas's lips brush against the back of Dean's neck, and the fear crawls away, just a little, the rings in his duffel bag several rooms over pressing a little less against his mind.

Dean falls asleep with Castiel's knees tucked against the back of his thighs, their fingers tangled warm together against Dean's chest.


End file.
